A Vaccine Is Not Enough to Save Us

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 103: 6-14 and Mark 2: 1-22 Sermon Title: A Vaccine Is Not Enough to Save Us Preached on June 21, 2020 That was 22 whole verses I just read. I don’t know if that seemed like a long reading to you. It did kind of seem like a long reading to me, but that could just be because I’m used to reading only a few verses at a time, maybe half that many, so that my sermons are based on just one moment in Scripture rather than a chain of events. The benefit of basing a sermon on just a few verses or on one particular event in Scripture is that I can focus on just one thing. Like most husbands, that’s better for me. Because it’s impossible for me to multitask, I just focus on one thing at a time. One event in the life of Jesus or one small section of His teachings. Only, when we read several verses describing several moments in the life of Christ as we just did it’s possible to see significant similarities as Jesus moves from one healing to the next, and then to a statement about patches on clothes and new wine in old wineskins. Reading all these 22 verses at once, I see how the whole series of events works together, and for the first time I noticed the similarities between the healing of the paralytic in the first 12 verses of our reading and the healing of Levi in the next five. However, our Bible doesn’t call it the healing of Levi. The heading in my Bible has: “Jesus heals a paralytic” over verses 1-12 and “Jesus calls Levi” over verses 13-17, but what I want to focus on this morning is how Jesus deals with both of these men in a similar way, though we may think of them differently. While we call one of these events a “healing” and the other a “calling”, Jesus deals with them both the same way: by forgiving their sins. Just that may have something important to teach us about the way Christ is at work in the world for we mostly think of sin and sickness as two different things. We go one place to be healed from a physical issue and another for the kind of healing a tax collector might require, but in this series of events we see that Christ came to heal the corrupted soul and the paralyzed body. That our Lord prays for broken hearts no less fervently than he prays for those with blocked arteries. That he concerns himself with every disease which causes us pain, whether it be a virus that attacks our lungs or one that corrupts our society. So, while we sometimes see the physical as one thing and the spiritual as another, Jesus sees a link. You can tell, first of all, because when healing the paralyzed man Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” He didn’t lay his hands on him. He didn’t take his temperature or suggest a remedy. Nor did he take mud from the ground to rub on the man’s skin as he did for the blind man’s eyes at the pool of Siloam. Instead he says, “Son, your sins are forgiven” suggesting that the Savior knew that our bodies and our spirits are connected. That his spiritual sin had something to do with his physical condition. We don’t always think this way, or not all of us think this way. We mostly tend to think of maladies that effect our bodies as separate from the state of our souls. For example, just the other night I broke out in hives. I don’t like hives and I really don’t like how they keep me up itching until the Benadryl kicks-in. For the second time this summer I couldn’t sleep for some kind of allergic reaction. I told my doctor about it and he told me to check my diet. Then I told my friend Dr. Jeffrey Meeks about it and he told me to relax. Now those are two different responses. One from a medical doctor the other from a man with a doctorate in sacred music. So, which is it, diet or stress? Does the paralyzed man need a doctor or a savior? Do I need pills or prayer? For this moment in our country’s history, do we need Dr. Fauci or Pope Francis? The true answer is not either/or, for we are spiritual and physical beings. We suffer from conditions which require a liberation from disease and despair. We struggle with symptom and sinfulness. We are confined by physical and spiritual paralysis, and while what we all want, while what we all pray for today is a vaccine, a vaccine can’t fix everything. The way Jesus says it: “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise the patch pulls away from it… no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins.” Thinking of this teaching I say a vaccine is not all that’s needed to heal our nation, for this virus is not the only problem we are facing. In fact, you might agree that this time of quarantine is revealing so many problems in our society that the virus appears to be only the tip of the iceberg. Certainly, I’m praying for a vaccine. I’m sure you are too, but that’s not all we need. For as time goes on and quarantine continues what is revealed are just how many cures our society needs. Think about it: I’m tired of being isolated. I’m sure you are too? Only today I realize that many have been living in isolation far before this pandemic hit. We need a cure for loneliness. And I’m worried about our economy and job loss. I’m worried about all those kids who depended on school lunches. Certainly I’m grateful for the way our school system mobilized to deliver meals to kids in our community and I rejoice for the way our church has gotten involved in feeding people, but poverty and hunger are issues that ours, among the richest nations in the world, has struggled with for generations. We need a cure for poverty. This virus reveals so much brokenness, brokenness which has been there, it just wasn’t as obvious before, so in this long Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Mark what I hear is a call from the Lord to not just think about a patch, but a new garment, not new wine in old wine skins, but new wine in new wine skins, a more perfect union, a noble priesthood, a holy people, a new society overcoming the ills that are not new today, just harder to ignore. For we can’t go visit at the nursing home today, but it’s not as though there was a line out the door to visit our elders before. Home improvement retailers are reporting record sales as people who don’t have anything else to do tackle do-it-yourself projects, but if our concern is only with our own homes than where is our generosity? Protestors rally in the streets marching for an end to racism today, though it’s not as though this were a new problem. And the partisan divide seems greater than ever in Washington DC, only there’s no quick fix, no easy solution, because none of us know how to get along with people who think differently. From sea to shining sea, we all think we’re right and they’re wrong as cities, towns, and households across these states which were meant to be united are divided. Fixing our society is no patch job. A vaccine isn’t going to heal all that ails us. So, Christ goes to heal a paralyzed man by forgiving his sins, then he goes to a tax collector and changes his life. Levi, son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. Jesus came to him and he too “got up” and walked. Just as Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” this man was made clean and new. He walked away from a life of self-interest. He gave up his vocation where taking advantage of people was required. He stood up from the tax booth, and in so doing he gave up who he had been to become a disciple. Maybe like me you can see that our nation needs this kid of miraculous healing as much as we need a vaccine. No longer collecting debts, he invited the Lord and a bunch of other sinners into his house to feed them. No longer focused on what he might take but on what he might give, his table was open to all kinds of people. So many sinners and tax collectors were sitting in Levi’s home with Jesus and his disciples that when the Scribes of the Pharisees heard about it, they asked, “Why does he [Jesus] eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Based on what I know of Scribes and Pharisees I want to gently rephrase this statement: “Those who think they are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the self-righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” I rephrase that statement because I believe Jesus is saying that we’re all sick. We just don’t necessarily know it. We’re all sinners, we’re just afraid to admit it, but those who are ready to repent are ahead of the game. Are you ready to face the role that you play in our society’s brokenness? And are you ready to ask him for healing? Some would say that’s the only requirement of being a Christian. It’s not so unlike the requirement for entry into Alcoholics Anonymous. All you have to do to become a member is admit that you have a problem that you need help with, and so, all that’s required of us who would follow Jesus is to confess that we have a problem with sin that we cannot fix ourselves. It doesn’t matter how we got so sick. What matters is whether or not we’d let him make us well. The Psalmist wrote: as a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. That’s important in this culture of ours, where in the face of so much brokenness, there are those who double down on their innocence, deny their role in the problem, downplay its severity, blame someone else, or pretend they have it under control. That’s been me. I don’t know what I’m doing so I’ve been constantly looking for some assurance that I’m doing this right. That as a pastor and as I father I’m going to help us all get through to the otherside, but now I see that if I’ve been looking for assurance that I’m doing OK I’m looking for the wrong thing. For what we all must be looking for now is his open hand, calling us to take it and to follow. Precious Lord, take my hand; lead me on, help me stand; I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light; Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home. Some people have been pretending to be innocent and striving to be perfect for so long they don’t know how to do anything else. On this Father’s Day I want to remind you that your heavenly father, maybe unlike your earthly father, doesn’t reward perfection with love. That’s not even how love works. Take his hand this day and feel his love. Our God does not reject sinners but chases after them to eat with them. Just accept his love, for he gives it freely. Take his hand and be made new, that you might become a light in this sin sick world. Amen.

The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 91: 9-12 and Mark 1: 1-20 Sermon Title: The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God Preached on June 14, 2020 This is a strange time for me as a preacher. I say that, not hoping for sympathy, but because what I’m feeling now may be something close to what you’re feeling. Maybe like you, my relationships feel like their suffering because without seeing people I care about, physically, I can’t really tell where things stand, and I fill in what I don’t know with too much negative stuff. They say most of communication is none verbal. That’s why phone calls are imperfect, and emails are even worse. We understand and process between words which we hear with what we see. If we see them smile back at us, we know they’re happy. Or by watching as tears well up in their eyes we know more about what their feeling than words could ever tell us. Plus, we feel close to people when they touch us. We know we’re being understood based on all kinds of cues, but I’m here in this pulpit and I do an awful lot of talking. Only I’m talking without knowing how what I’m saying is being received. You might know how strange that is, or how less than ideal. What I typically do is I preach, and I look at your faces. I can tell when I’ve gone on for too long because someone has fallen asleep. I can tell when I’ve gone too far or not far enough because I’m reading your faces while I’m talking. You do the same thing. I wonder if the number one thing we all are missing, it’s certainly the number one thing that I’m missing right now is face to face. Face to face at the grocery store so we don’t have to tell people when we’re smiling beneath our facemask. Face to face with grandchildren. Face to face with our church family. Face to face is a human need and so, that’s what God does. We just read a long Scripture passage from the Gospel of Mark. Rev. Cassie Waits and I are the preachers for this month and next. She suggested we focus on the Gospel of Mark and I agreed. This is the first in a series six. Six sermons, six readings from the Gospel of Mark covering about the first half of this Gospel. We’ll cover a lot ground in these next several weeks and we just did today. The Scripture Lesson began with a clear title: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What we all know about Jesus is that he is God in flesh in blood, walking around, moving into our neighborhood, taking on the mortal coil, experiencing our joys and fears, suffering even. He’s not bystander to human existence, but in Christ our God takes human flesh. I don’t want to rush past this miracle though I know you’ve heard all about it many times before, because it’s just so earth-shattering and nearly unprecedented. There’s just not much else like it in the world of religion. Much of what we know of the religion of the Ancient Greeks is quite different. Did you ever see those old Greek myth movies? Jason and the Argonauts? A bunch of guys in beards and animal skins fighting off Claymation monsters? The way I remember it, just as in the ancient myths, the god’s in those movies had this place up in the clouds on Mt. Olympus and they could look down on the earth to watch the human dramas unfold. According to the myths, occasionally they’d come down, but what sticks with me from the movies was this portal they had to look into our lives. It was like their TV. It was reality TV before there was reality TV. Their window into our lives was on the floor. They moved the clouds to watch and be entertained, but how much could they really know of humans when watching from a distance? How much can anyone really know about anything when watching from a distance, so what does God do? God comes close. Incarnate in human form. Walking the earth in our shoes. Do you remember those stories inspired by this kind of incarnation? There’s the Prince and the Pauper where these two boys who look alike switch places. The prince finds out how hard it is to be a pauper and the pauper finds out that being the prince isn’t all sitting around eating cake. They’re both better for it. Why? Because when assumptions drive us, we get all messed up. A couple older gentlemen back in Tennessee once told me about the first time they met a yankee. When they were just young boys having never met one before, they threw rocks at him. Now, why would someone do that? How could someone do that? But when we don’t see people, we make stuff up, and what we make up is nearly all the time far worse than the truth. These two probably thought he had come to town like the Carpet Baggers they’d heard from their parents and grandparents. Imagine if we based all our impressions of people not on what we learned after meeting them, but on what we’d heard. I went to college with a Tennessean named Will who went to school up in Maine. The first people he met up there were surprised he wore shoes. Why? Because if your opinion of people from Eastern Tennessee is based on the Beverly Hillbillies, you’ll think all kinds of crazy stuff, so what does God do? Does he take someone’s word for it? Does he come to understand the human condition, based on what he can see through the clouds? No. Again and again, God draws near. God draws near to get to know us, and we must constantly allow our assumptions to die lest we see the world as full of enemies rather than brothers and sisters. After the girls are in bed Sara and I watch TV together. Right now, we’re watching a show called Poldark. It’s one of those Masterpiece Classics that also comes on PBS like Downton Abby. I find some of the Masterpiece shows to be a little slow, but that’s OK. I just take a nap while Sara watches. Poldark put me to sleep just a couple times, but only a couple times. The main character in this show is a British veteran of the American Revolution. This redcoat goes home to Cornwall to manage his family’s copper mine, and he gets into all these adventures. He’s like an 18th Century Rambo with a British accent, exceptional manners, and an enlightened mind. On the subject of war, Poldark tells his wife Demelza: “It’s horrible what men can do to other men once they’ve convinced themselves that their enemy is less than human.” I think about how police officers are being talked about today. Now I do stand with those who march peacefully, knowing that some bad officers have treated those in their care as less than human. And I don’t just know it. I’ve seen it. But any crowd or politician whose been convinced that all police officers are evil are promoting the same prejudice they’re protesting against. It’s horrible what people will do to each other once they’ve convinced themselves that their enemy or opponent or subject or family member is less than human. What if we all took the time to say to ourselves in the midst of our anger or frustration, “I don’t agree with this person: this liberal, this conservative, this protestor, this police officer and I wonder why they think the way they do?” What we all too often do instead, is assume we already know, saying to ourselves, “Oh, I know. They must be stupid.” What’s different about Jesus is this: He could have sat up in the clouds making assumptions. Instead, he took on our flesh to really understand. He just kept drawing closer and closer to us until he understood why we are all so broken and confused. Because he understood us all and why we do the things that we do, even from the cross he called out: “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.” In this Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Mark he even got baptized. Why? For what? “What sins did the Lord need to have washed away?” we ask. Only, that’s not the point. He’s taking on our condition. He’s baptized to be as we are and to do as we have. He just keeps coming closer and closer. He didn’t even keep his distance from Satan. Now that’s important, isn’t it? Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t include any details of what this encounter was like. Typically, I would say that being “in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan” sounds graphic enough, only now, after three months of isolation we might say: forty days? That’s nothing. Only, consider what happens to us after forty days or three weeks of isolation. What has happened to us after three weeks of only looking out on the world through our television screen or Facebook feed. Consider what happens to our view of the world when we aren’t apart of it? Consider what happens to how we think about people when we can’t see them or hear them or be with them face to face. How hard it is to get to know a person through email! How hard it is to ease a troubled relationship or work out a disagreement if you can’t see their face and really understand! For the past three months, we may as well have been up in the clouds, looking down, having no real understanding of the people we’re looking down on. When that’s the case it becomes all too easy to give up. Yet, Cindy Buchanan (member of our church and mother of my oldest friend, Matt) said it better than anyone: “The zombie movies convinced us that after months of a viral pandemic we’d all be eating each other. Only, when I actually see people, I see how much kindness there is in the world.” The tempter whispers in our ears: just give up on them. They’ll never get it. They’re not worth it. Jesus never did that. I just know he never did. Even after 40 days in the wilderness tempted by Satan himself, Jesus never gave up on the world or on us. After the temptation our Scripture Lesson’s last few verses described what he was doing. John had been arrested and he started proclaiming good news. Then, “he passed along the Sea of Galilee.” That’s all it says: “he passed along.” What do you think that means? I imagine he was whistling. Or enjoying the waves as they hit his feet. Then he looked up and saw two fishermen: Simon and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. I imagine Jesus thinking to himself, “I’ve always loved watching fishermen cast their nets into the sea. I wonder what else those two could catch… Follow me and I will make you fish for people,” he said to them. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. A few years ago, I got caught reading the Bible in a doctor’s waiting room. A man said to me, “I love to read the Bible too. It tells us what God is like and how we should be.” What is God like? God is like Jesus. Longing to know us. Always loving us. Saving all his harsh words for those religious authorities who cared more about rules and status than people. And how should we be? Not like them. Like him. Amen.

The God of Love and Peace Will Be With You

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 1: 1-4 and 2nd Corinthians 13: 11-13 Sermon Title: The God of Love and Peace Will Be With You Preached on June 5, 2020 One morning week before last I was walking our dogs around the block. I wasn’t exactly happy to be doing that, but it’s an important thing to do. Since being stuck inside our home all day myself, I have new sympathy for what their lives are like, so maybe it was more of an obligation than a joy to greet the morning by slowly walking around the block while our dogs smell every mailbox, stump, and branch, then dutifully picking up whatever they leave behind. Only about halfway the block around a woman hauling limbs from her front yard to the curb said something to me which changed the way I greeted that new day. I missed it the first time she said it, so I stopped, took my headphones out, to hear her say it again, “This is the day that the Lord has made!” Do you know that feeling of being stuck in an obligation or to be simply moving through the steps and all at once your eyes are open to how lucky you are? This was the perfect thing to hear someone say that morning. For one thing it reminded me that this was the day that the Lord has made. It was a beautiful morning and it was gift. It also evoked my awareness of the divine moving around us. But most of all it was so nice to hear someone say something that I knew exactly how to respond to. With a smile on my face I responded to this woman’s “This is the day that the Lord has made,” with my “Let us rejoice and be glad in it,” yet how many other times is it not nearly so easy to know what to say? I remember vividly standing in the foyer of our old house in Tennessee just a few years ago. Our two little girls stopping me in my tracks to ask, “I know that when we were tiny babies we were inside Mama’s tummy, but how did we get out?” Worse than that, have your children or grandchildren asked about the events of the past two weeks? The protests? Did they ask you if it was true that as George Floyd died, he called for his mother? Did they have trouble understanding why the police, who is called to help, had his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck? Or why his partner stood idly by as he said, “I can’t breathe”? Were they scared when they saw the damage done to the CNN Center just down I 75? What did the children of police officers think, should they have witnessed the video of squad cars burning? Or what did the parents of protestors think when they read the tweet: “When looting starts the shooting starts?” Then, how does anyone make sense of that picture of our President taken after the crowd was dispersed with gas and rubber bullets, standing in front of a church holding up a Bible? Where is God at work in all of this? What are we to say to anyone, much less our kids as they make sense out a world that all of us are having trouble making any sense of ourselves? An old friend of mine, Rev. Amos Disasa sat his son down to talk about race. Amos serves First Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas as their Senior Pastor. The two of us have a lot in common, though we don’t look alike. He was born in Ethiopia to Ethiopian parents, so race has played a subtle part in our friendship since we were classmates at Presbyterian College. Just after seminary the two of us spent several days in Montreat, North Carolina, for a conference of Presbyterian ministers. One night we went out for a beer at a bar called the Town Pump. Immediately, upon sitting down, it became obvious to me that this was a bar for locals, not out of town Presbyterian ministers, so I said to Amos, “I feel a little out of place.” Amos said to me, “Joe, do you see anyone else from Ethiopia in here?” Amos married a white woman from West Virginia. Their two children are of mixed race. Last Thursday Amos told the congregational of First Presbyterian in Dallas that in light of recent events he sat his 10-year-old son down to explain what’s been happening and what it means for him as a male with dark skin. “Your skin color will make some people uncomfortable. Some people will see your body as a threat,” he told his son. Then, thinking about George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, or any number of other unarmed African American men who have been killed recently, his son asked, “Can that happen to me?” His father said, “yes.” Then, his son’s second question was, “Can that happen to you?” Again, his father said, “yes.” Our children have asked me many difficult questions, but “where do babies come from” doesn’t come close to either of these. Among all the many difficult questions our children have asked me, they’ve never asked me to answer a question that I would have been so sad to answer truthfully as these two questions, but we all must say something about the events of the last two weeks. Only, where do we even begin? I wonder if where we ought to begin is with the words of our Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Or with those words which have marked the beginning of each school day for my children and your children: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Or those words which lady liberty holds precious sheilding Ellis Island: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Or with the dream Dr. King preached about 57 years ago before the Lincoln Monument: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. Even in these moments when the table of brotherhood has erupted in protests and riots with shielded police facing off with the crowds as democrats and republicans prove that truly anything can be made into a political issue, we turn to these words to remind us of who we’re intending to be. We turn to these words to remember again, that even if they don’t describe where we are, they do describe where we are going. And then we turn to the words of Scripture to remind us of who is with us on our journey. In our First Scripture Lesson, God spoke our world into existence. Some people think that these verses are trying to replace the Science text books, but I say they are trying to remind us of the power of our words. God spoke our world into existence. My friends, if we don’t like the way our world looks today, then know that our words have the power to create a new reality. So, we must remember again those words which gave birth to our nation and stand against those words which might take it all away and the violence that would burn it all down. Violence is how we lose ourselves, while words, beautiful words are how we find our way back. The words of Scripture testify to the reality that hovering over a formless void was the wind from God which swept over the face of the waters. When God spoke light into that darkness and as the Spirit swirled the waters of chaos into order, God spoke again saying that it was good. Don’t forget that He still does. God hasn’t given up on His creation. Neither can we. And he calls us to show the indifferent, the prejudiced, the polarizing, the power drunk, that a more ideal union is possible, that justice might roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. The Apostle Paul ends his second letter to the Church in Corinth saying, Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. This is a powerful way to end a letter. It’s a call to order and harmony. It’s a call to love. It’s a reminder to recognize God at work in our midst. And it is likely his great goodbye. How do we honor his memory or the memory of any of God’s saints if rather than agree with one another, we make our brothers and sisters our enemies? How do we follow the model of any who have loved us if we stop working for peace? How do we honor the memory of those who spilled their blood for the ideals of this nation is we turn to tyranny and chaos rather than love and the communion of the Holy Spirit? As Americans and as Christians, our persistent charge is to join the God of creation in forming a more perfect union, a more noble brotherhood, to continue on in the building of that city on a hill where all are valued, all are honored, and where all so truly matter. Let us never ignore the brokenness. Let us never silence the angry, saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. Instead, let us listen to the lady who called me to recognize that this is the day that the Lord has made. Today, let us pray, let us listen, let us walk, let us dance, let us work for something better for our children, but above all else let us rejoice and be glad in this world our God is still creating, sustaining, and redeeming. Alleluia. Amen.